Young interview, DTV updates and odds and ends

Let’s catch up on a few things, starting with a Sunday programming note: Sunday morning’s ESPN SportsCenter will feature Vince Young’s conversation with Michael Smith of ESPN in which he says he wasn’t contemplating suicide last September when he disappeared for a time. A longer interview with Young will air July 28 on ESPN’s E:60. …

I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal a few months ago and, clearly, I’m in over my economic head. A couple of recent issues have included an advertising insert asking me if I’m interested in purchasing a suite at Texans games. Alas, I’m not. I wonder how suite sales are going these days? …

As of my most recent digital converter box rescanning, I’m up to 48 channels on my over-the-air TV. I’m on the southwest side, and a neighbor who’s in the TV business says he can see the Sugar Land transmission towers at night from our neighborhood, so I guess I’m on the right side of town. How is reception in your neighborhood? …

BTW, the National Association of Broadcasters says that Houston stations received an average of 675 calls Friday from viewers seeking assistance. Most, according to the NAB, concerned rescanning issues. Other average call totals included 110 in Washington, D.C., 60 in Atlanta and 140 in Philadelphia. …

Also, we’ll get an additional digital channel on Tuesday when Southern News Group, which publishes the Southern Chinese Daily News, launches ITV International Television at channel 55.5. …

Baseball fans of a certain age — i.e., old — may be interested in Bob Costas’ next MLB Network project, a conversation with Bob Gibson and Tim McCarver about the Cardinals’ 1960s World Series teams. The interview airs at 6 p.m. Monday, followed by NBC’s broadcast of Game 1 from the 1968 Series in which Gibson struck out 17 batters against the Tigers.

Good line from McCarver about playing in the days before ballparks had the batters’ eye in center field: Talking about Game 1 of the 1967 series against the Red Sox, he said, “Not only was Bob tough to hit that first day, but so was Jose Santiago. You couldn’t see the ball.” …

That’s Sir Nick to you, duffer. CBS Sports golf analyst Nick Faldo will be knighted by Queen Elizabeth, becoming the second golfer to be so honored. The first was Sir Henry Cotton, who was knighted in 1988. …

Game 4 of the NBA Finals on ABC had a 9.4 Nielsen household rating with an average audience of 15.95 million viewers. In Houston, the game averaged a 12.2 Nielsen rating on KTRK (Channel 13).

ESPN, as is its wont, is passing along all sorts of puffery about how great viewership is for the Finals. Actually, it’s only good in comparison with the generally awful numbers that the NBA has experienced since hitching its wagon to ESPN a few years back and in comparison to the generally so-so numbers for prime time TV at this time of year.

Games 1 and 2 of the Finals were the top-rated shows of the week ending June 7 in the following local markets: Los Angeles (naturally), Chicago (strong ABC market), Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Washington, Houston (Univision had seven of the top 10), Miami (the next 11 shows in the weekly ratings were on Univision), Orlando (naturally) and Sacramento. …

Finally, I don’t know about you, but I’m significantly cheesed at NBC for canceling My Name is Earl. Talks between Twentieth Century Fox TV and Turner to air new episodes on TBS fell through late this week, so the show’s a goner. Oh, well. That’s 30 fewer minutes a week that I’m spending with network TV.